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This introductory chapter seeks to locate the place and status of the right to health within contemporary social and political debates. A picture emerges of the right to health that is far more contested and much less central to political and social debates concerning health care than its most enthusiastic advocates would suggest. But this is a far cry from concluding that the right to health is irrelevant. On the contrary, there is no doubting that it is increasingly an unavoidable part of public health discourse. The central challenge is to move the right from the periphery to the centre of...

This introductory chapter seeks to locate the place and status of the right to health within contemporary social and political debates. A picture emerges of the right to health that is far more contested and much less central to political and social debates concerning health care than its most enthusiastic advocates would suggest. But this is a far cry from concluding that the right to health is irrelevant. On the contrary, there is no doubting that it is increasingly an unavoidable part of public health discourse. The central challenge is to move the right from the periphery to the centre of such debates, a challenge that will require far more sophisticated and hard-headed analysis on the part of lawyers, health professionals, and public policy makers. The chapter outlines the approach to be adopted in an attempt to meet this challenge.